One-on-One with Mojo Marketplace Co-Founder J.R. Farr: Part 4

This is the fourth and final installment of WPHub‘s sit-down interview with Mojo Marketplace Co-Founder J.R. Farr. So far, we’ve talked about how J.R. came up in the industry with sites like Mojo Themes and Mojo Code. We’ve also talked about an acquisition by a company called EIG, which will open up Mojo Marketplace to millions of new users.

But, going forward, will there be a WordPress industry for Mojo to evolve in? Will the industry look completely different? In our final article, we’ll talk about the future of WordPress and about the business relationships that Mojo Marketplace has with its arsenal of sellers. Did we mention the site has thousands of sellers?

WPHub: What do you see as the future of WordPress? Is the industry growing or contracting? Where do you see the WordPress industry in five years?

J.R.: I think theme development and plugins will continue growing like they are now. There are niche themes, but all-around, out-of-the-box solutions that you can sell to niches will become popular. Happy Tables has done it for the restaurant industry and I see a lot more of that happening around the niches for sure. That’ll be big going forward.

In the Mojo offices, we have two core WordPress contributors who hang out here. They write on our blog and they’re nice to have around keeping tabs on what’s going on at WordPress. We’re really tuned in.

WPHub: How saturated are the theme shop and marketplace industries right now? Is there room for new entrants?

J.R.: There is more room for theme shop entrants right now, but it’s very saturated and there’s a lot out there. However, I don’t know if we’ve even started to pull shares from each other because the industry keeps growing too. I don’t think we’ve gotten to that point yet. There is plenty of room to grow right now. There is plenty of room for new people to come in right now. I think we’re focusing on quality, clean products right now. Pick a niche and make it your own.

WPHub: Talk about the commission structure and relationships you have with your sellers. How does that all work?

J.R.: It’s just like the App Store and we use different percentages. Where the other marketplaces are failing is that it’s good to love your sellers, but you have to be profitable. However, I have seen people just pay listing fees. Apple, for example, owns the App Store. It’s the only one that will ever be there and they make money off of everything.

With us, it’s all commission-based starting at 50%. You can work your way up based on sales and revenue to as much as 70%. If you sell your theme non-exclusively, meaning you sell it outside of our marketplace, then you get paid 50%. Everyone gets paid monthly net-15 and we do PayPal payouts.

WPHub: How do new sellers come online in your marketplace?

J.R.: In the new marketplace, we’ve taken a slightly different approach, but basically a seller creates an account and starts the upload process. We have some requirements and guidelines, a lot of them centering on documentation. One they’ve submitted and gone through the guidelines, we have a review team. That’s one piece and we also look at aesthetics and design. On Theme Forest, you don’t have to do support if you don’t want to. On Mojo, you have to do support. We deny way more sellers than we approve, by the way.

WPHub: We’d like to thank J.R. for his time for our interview. Visit MojoMarketplace.com for full details and to check out what the site has to offer!